The Deposition

The pale body of Christ is lowered from the cross and gathered by mourners, a composition the young Rubens worked out in Rome while steeping himself in Caravaggio and Italian models. Painted during his formative Italian decade for a patron in the south and now in the Galleria Borghese, it shows the Flemish master absorbing Mediterranean drama - strong diagonals, theatrical light, weighty flesh - before carrying it home to Antwerp. The grief is grand and sculptural, a rehearsal for the great Descent he would soon paint for his own city's cathedral.